Organic search optimization’s essential strategies are widely understood, but how can healthcare and health insurance marketers utilise SEO to build brand recognition and interest in their products? We go through the three main SEO tactics in depth.
Healthcare SEO Techniques: Let’s Get Started
When using SEO for healthcare and health insurance, there are three search engine marketing techniques to utilise.
- Product: The first sort of SEO is optimising your “product” pages, such as those for a health insurance policy or medical procedure, in order to have these “products” appear on the first page of search results for a broad search (more on that below).
- Creating Content: The second use of SEO is a content marketing strategy that makes use of articles to increase website traffic.
- Branded: For “branded” search, SEO is used as a third strategy. When a visitor uses Google to search for anything on your website, branded search optimisation makes sure the best, most-relevant page ranks first.
- Product
This tactic aims to make your “product” information more visible in generic search results, which are results that do not include the name of your company or organisation.
Generic search results increase your visibility to potential clients or members who are looking for a service, medication, or insurance plan but aren’t aware of your business (or, if they are, your business isn’t front of mind).
“Generic search terms” for healthcare and health insurers, as examples:
plans for family health insurance Dallas, Texas, MRI facility, affordable health insurance Utah
New York Bariatric Surgery
Example of “Generic Search” SEO
Take the most recent term, for instance. Users who type “bariatric surgery new york” in this scenario are searching for a procedure in a specific area rather than a specific hospital or doctor in New York.
To optimise a single piece of content to rank for this search phrase is the marketing challenge. I advise choosing each of the “products” or “service offerings” that your company sells in order to optimise them for both major and secondary keywords.
Here are the top 5 naturally occuring results for “bariatric surgery new york”; you can see how these sites are optimised for a variety of bariatric surgery-related keywords, such “weight loss” and “obesity.”
What Kind of Value Does SEO Produce?
By comparing the cost to purchase a sponsored search ad, we can determine the worth of organic ranks. This value ranges from $2.79 to $16.79 per click for this phrase.
Each click that an organic search marketing campaign may provide might lower the cost of this product’s paid search advertising. The greatest method for contacting potential customers who are in the middle to bottom of the engagement funnel is to optimise your “product” pages for organic search. These users are highly motivated and actively thinking about their next move.
- Content Promotion
Content marketing is a tactic that provides people with knowledge on wide, general themes or enquiries that are related to the programmes or services that your company provides.
Keeping with the previous example, a hospital or clinic that performs bariatric surgery may create and post any or all of the following articles on its website:
- How long does bariatric surgery recovery take?
- What kind of bariatric surgery are there?
- What alternatives exist to weight-loss surgery?
- What is bariatric surgery, and what outcomes may be expected?
The material in these content marketing pieces must be truthful and not in any way deceptive in the healthcare industry. Therefore, we advise that you partner the SEO strategist with skilled medical writers when implementing a healthcare content marketing plan that covers certain therapies. In order to guarantee that the material ranks well without compromising its quality and accuracy, the objective is to first generate medically correct information.
Promote “Products” and “Services” with the use of content marketing
Building awareness of your services is what content marketing is all about, not simply getting people to your website. The content marketing article template you choose shouldn’t lead to an editorial dead end.
The page should, first and foremost, include connections to a “service,” “product,” or “treatment page.”
Second, include callouts that provide a chance to subscribe to a newsletter or follow your company on social media. The idea is that if people like this stuff, they may want to see more of it.
Third, reuse content marketing pieces across all media platforms, including social media, email newsletters, and other channels, by using the COPE method (Create Once, Publish Everywhere).
One of our goals when we produce an article and optimise it for search is to be as comprehensive as we can be so that people don’t browse for other search results. Why?
This improves your company’s brand and raises the probability that the user will forwards this post to others or visit the page again in the future, which raises engagement.
Produce an article with the following qualities for this form of hospital or healthcare search engine marketing content:
- 1,500 words is excellent, but 1,000 words is required to make the page authoritative. Google favours lengthier content as well.
- Subheadings that are straightforward, informative, and directional should be used.
- Aim for an 8th grade reading level and use a programme like Hemingway to check your material. Make sure the language is not too complicated or filled with jargon.
- Include videos that summarise the information as well as pertinent graphics and diagrams to help the reader understand the text
Although not absolutely necessary, the first three are the most significant.
- Branded Search
Branded search is the last form of search engine optimisation for the healthcare industry. A branded search result is one that displays your company name together with other search results. For health insurance, consider the following examples:
- Medicare BlueCross plans
- Cigna Aetna out-of-pocket limit for physicians
- Comparing UnitedHealthcare plans
Users that do this kind of search are already acquainted with your business or healthcare organisation. As part of their customer journey, they are utilising Google to locate particular information on your website. With branded search, you can make sure that people can reach the most relevant page on your website quickly and simply when they use Google to look for information on potential or present clients, members, or customers.
Key tactic: You should pursue a branded search because you want to ease the “engagement process” for existing and potential members or patients who are already familiar with your company.
If you’re just starting to think about branded search, visit Google to discover what people are searching for related to your company. To obtain the most general results, utilise incognito mode or a private browser window.
Changing Branded Search for Healthcare and Health Insurance
Adjusting your page names, URLs, and H1 headlines to be explicit about the information on the page is the basic approach for branded search. For instance, the results of a Google search for “UCLA Hospital locations” are as follows.
Although there are three additional results, the top result is the best one for finding all of the sites. In order to optimise for branded search, you must first analyse the typical search terms used by consumers interacting with your business, and then take into account how clearly Google is presenting your content. Here, the relevance of results two and three is increased by using the words “Our Locations” and “Locations” as the initial words. Although outcome one probably works, there is still opportunity for improvement.
SEO’s Effect on Business
These three approaches result in various business outcomes.
Branded search improves access and boosts customer happiness
Content marketing raises awareness, educates potential customers who are learning about your business, and keeps existing customers interested.
Generic search attracts consumers with a high degree of search intent and advertises businesses and goods.
A “marketing moat” is created around your offerings by investing in organic search optimisation. In contrast to sponsored advertising, where a rival with more resources might overtake you, organic search ranking develops over time. Increasing traffic and brand recognition by investing in organic search will make your website more valuable and difficult to take over.
